Convention
The convention was developed and adopted by participating nations at a meeting in Ramsar, Mazandaran, Iran on February 2, 1971, hosted by the Iranian Department of Environment, and came into force on December, 21 1975.
The Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance now includes 1,950 sites (known as Ramsar Sites) covering around 1,900,000 km2 (730,000 sq mi), up from 1,021 sites in 2000. The nation with the highest number of sites is the United Kingdom at 168; the nation with the greatest area of listed wetlands is Canada, with over 130,000 km2 (50,000 sq mi), including the Queen Maud Gulf Migratory Bird Sanctuary at 62,800 km2 (24,200 sq mi).
Presently there are 161 contracting parties, up from 119 in 1999 and from 21 initial signatory nations in 1971. Signatories meet every three years as the Conference of the Contracting Parties (COP), the first held in Cagliari, Italy in 1980. Amendments to the original convention have been agreed to in Paris (in 1982) and Regina (in 1987).
There is a standing committee, a scientific review panel, and a secretariat. The headquarters is located in Gland, Switzerland, shared with the IUCN.
Read more about this topic: Ramsar Convention
Famous quotes containing the word convention:
“No good poetry is ever written in a manner twenty years old, for to write in such a manner shows conclusively that the writer thinks from books, convention and cliché, not from real life.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“The metaphor of the king as the shepherd of his people goes back to ancient Egypt. Perhaps the use of this particular convention is due to the fact that, being stupid, affectionate, gregarious, and easily stampeded, the societies formed by sheep are most like human ones.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)
“By convention there is color, by convention sweetness, by
convention bitterness, but in reality there are atoms and space.”
—Democritus (c. 460–400 B.C.)